I’ve been an owner of a “DMB” player for a while. I talk about it from time to time. One of the features I never get around to using is the whole Digital Media Broadcasting aspect of the player.

First of all, when it first rolled out in Daejeon, there wasn’t much content. There were two channels, and they aren’t very entertaining. One was news. Boring, Korean broadcast news. I’d be more likely to fall asleep watching this than I would getting off at the right subway stop if I starting watching this.

The other channel wasn’t any better. This was the “youth oriented” channel. It’s all the lame Korean shows I avoid watching normally. Dating shows, game shows with no purpose, annoying stuff. The exact reason I DON’T watch Korean television ever.

Today, I had burned through all my podcasts, had no videos on hand, and was walking back to my house. I tried the DMB scanner and was surprised to find two more channels on the list. One of them was running a sort of “Korea’s most wanted” style show. At least I THINK so. It was terribly boring.

My last hope for entertainment was my new channel on the DMB. They were showing a “Wow, other cultures are strange!” style show with a Korean panel. The show would travel somewhere and video tape a segment with someone strange, then the host and other guests would make spectacularly obvious comments about what they were watching.

With insights like, “Will he eat that? What’s he doing? That’s sure strange!” this is a staple of Korean television. It’s also the format favored by Korean radio. Play something people want to watch or listen to, then TALK while it’s playing. It’s like America’s Funniest Home Video, without the America, or the bodily damage. No Bob Saget either.

The whole show I saw as I walked home was dedicated to a strange man in China with an unusual pet. He kept giant centipedes in his house. His wife didn’t like them at all, and his neighbors thought he was weird. Not for keeping the pets, but for eating them as well. He showed off for the camera by devouring the giant centipede that was crawling on him. It’s China. It’s not like this was high on the “shocking” scale of strange stuff I saw devoured or for sale to be eaten.

Anyway, watching the man go around eating his “pets” while grossing everyone out and hearing the Korean panel’s comments about it kept me entertained as I walked home. I recorded it to upload to an online video site, but it’s in some strange proprietary format (.TES?) that doesn’t work with anything else. What’s the point of downloading and saving a file in a format nothing else reads?

Anyway, now I’ve got a few more choices on my player for DMB. Nothing great, but it still is digital TV on the go.